Local News

Towns move to comply with water reg

Cross connections must be addressed by 2020

Municipalities in northeast Colorado are working to get surveys done so they can be compliant with Colorado's Regulation 11. That's the rule, updated this year, that requires all municipal water taps with potentially uncontrolled cross connections to be fitted with backflow preventers.

What that means to building owners is that any water connection that could conceivably allow water from the building back into the town's water supply needs to be fitted with a device that would prevent that from happening. For most single-family homes, this isn't a worry. According to Tyson Ingels, the lead drinking water engineer with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the chances of a normal household water tap sucking water from the home back into the supply lines is minimal.

"You would have to have a complete failure of your water supply system, to the point that there would be no water pressure whatsoever in the (water supply) lines and there would even be negative pressure," Ingels said.

What might be more likely, according to the CDPHE, is that an installation like a high-pressure dishwasher in a commercial kitchen might accidentally force contaminated water back into the system. In-ground swimming pools, plumbed-in hot tubs, and some yard sprinkler systems also can pose a hazard.

And so, Colorado's drinking water regulations contain Regulation 11, a 322-page document that was originally adopted in 1963 "...to assure the safety of public drinking water supplies and to enable the state of Colorado to assume responsibility for enforcing the standards established by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act ..."

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The latest cross connection prevention part was contained in the 2015 update (the regulation had been amended 22 times, expanded three times, repealed, re-adopted, and then amended again last year.) According to a special Safe Drinking Water Program Policy adopted in May 2015, Colorado municipalities have until 2020 to bring their systems into compliance.

The first thing the towns have to do is know how many water taps they have and categorize them. A check with the five small towns in Logan County shows that all know that number and they know which ones need to be "surveyed," or checked to see whether cross-connections exist and whether backflow preventers already are installed or need to be installed.

If a cross-connection is discovered, and there isn't a proper device on it, the property owner has 120 days to get a device installed, although the May 2015 policy does allow for an "alternate schedule" if there is sufficient justification.

Four of the five small towns in Logan County have hired professionals to handle the process for them.

Fleming's focus is on getting its new sewer system up and running by the end of next year but Maintenance Supervisor Keith Beck said he knows about the cross connection requirement and plans to attack is once the sewer system is finished.

Merino has retained a Fort Collins company to make sure that 60 percent of its water taps have been surveyed by the end of the year and the rest will be in 2017.

Crook, Iliff, and Peetz all have retained Wrico Environmental Services of Sterling to help them come into compliance with Regulation 11. Lydia Kiser of Wrico said Crook's survey is finished and cross-connections have been identified.

"I've identified all of the cross-connections and I'm double-checking on whether the devices are appropriate, and making sure, if they have a device, that it's tested by the end of the year," Kiser said.

Peetz is next on the list for Wrico, and Kiser has submitted a request to the state for an "alternate schedule." She's asking for permission to have 25 percent of Peetz surveyed by the end of the year and the remainder done in 2017.

In Iliff, the town board first heard about cross-connections at its Oct. 11 meeting. Mayor Bob Suarez told the board at the time he's working with Kiser at Wrico to make sure the town is in compliance.

Ingels of the CDPHE his department has worked for 30 years to implement rules preventing the spread of bacteria through municipal water supplies, but cities and towns finally have a specific set of criteria to follow.

"We want to give towns specific things they have to do to be compliant," Ingels said.

Those specific things are a list of five types of plumbing systems that could pose an unacceptable health or safety risk:

• Fire supression systems;

• Irrigation systems including dedicated irrigation connected directly to the water mains;

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